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Friday, May 16, 2014

It's Okay to Have a Blah Day...or two

I wanted to write this post in case anyone was feeling this way or needed to hear this coming from someone else. The past two days I just haven't felt good about myself at all. My self-esteem can be a roller coaster going up and down with the way it fluctuates but I feel as though that's pretty normal. It's such a complex system that the smallest factor can switch it up. It's hard for me to pin point the fluctuations but I do remember that earlier in the week, Saturday-Monday to be exact, I felt great about myself. I was confident in the way I looked and felt good about my body. Then yesterday I just woke up and it was one of those days. I couldn't find anything to wear because I felt as though it all looked bad on me, my hair was all frizzy because it's been raining all week, I had a bad breakout, and I felt bloated and gross.

Now, I want to be clear: I don't always have days like this. I'm not depressed in the slightest and would never do anything to harm myself. It's just that sometimes I have those days where I feel blah. Usually I feel good about myself but there are times where I feel better or worse. It's human nature and it can be as simple as not liking what I'm wearing. I know that sounds superficial but the truth of the matter is that it affects my body image. If I have a day where I don't think what I'm wearing looks good on me then I will start to think that I'm fat. It breaks my heart because I hate feeling this way but it happens and I caught myself today. It's the second day in a row that I haven't been feeling confident and it's harder for me to try and bounce back. I don't know what it is but right now I feel like my dress isn't flattering, my hair is frizzy, and I still feel bloated. I caught myself today telling myself I was fat and I wanted to cry. Honest to God I was about to cry in the bathroom at my work because I just felt so bad about my body. Suddenly I wished so desperately that I was back at my lowest weight regardless of the fact that it wasn't healthy for me. I wanted to close my eyes and when I opened them, magically be 15 pounds lighter.

Then the roaring panic started in my head telling me I was fat, that my dress would look good on my coworker who is skinnier than me, that celebrities like Amanda Seyfried or Emma Stone don't have as fat of shoulders as me. Yeah I know it sounds strange but random thoughts like that come into my head when I start comparing my body to others. But suddenly a small voice popped up over the commotion going on inside me and it said something simple: "I am NOT fat". I looked at myself in the mirror, calmed myself down, and agreed with that voice. Now, things aren't suddenly all peachy keen because I'm still not feeling my best but the important thing is that I stopped those negative thoughts. It's hard because it used to be such a habit of mine, tearing myself down that those bad thoughts were pretty normal. As I've said before, I'm human and those thoughts pop up in everyone's mind from time to time but the critical thing is how we choose to cope with those thoughts. I used to give in and agree with them which just spiraled down into a path of body-loathing. I eventually hit my breaking point where I couldn't handle all my negativity towards my own body. That's when I knew that I had to make a change.

Slowly I began to accept the fact that I was individually created for a purpose. I believe to my core that none of us are here by accident. We are all masterfully crafted by the hands of the one who loves us. That became such a source of comfort for me because it helped me to gain confidence in myself and my appearance. I made a conscious choice to stop judging myself because in the end does it really help me? No, no, no, no, absolutely not! God created me to be exactly the way I am and I'm going to celebrate that!

So yes I had a couple crappy days in a row but I made a conscious choice not to beat myself up over it. Just because I told myself I was fat doesn't mean that I am. Also, I absolutely hate that word. "Fat" is such an ugly and degrading term to me and I would never call another person that, except to myself which is another thing I'm working on. Like I said these days don't always happen often but I know the quickest way to tear myself down and it's to use that horrible word. So right now I'm deciding to ban that word from my vocabulary because I never want to say that to myself again or to/about anyone else for that matter and I hope I don't hear us calling each other that. Not even as a joke because I for one know how jokes like that can actually twist a person's perception and manifest into something much more serious. You never know what someone is going through so it's important to be sensitive and build each other up rather than tearing one another down.

In the end all these two days were just those negative thoughts trying to come back but I didn't let them. I'm happy to say that this morning I woke up feeling much better about myself because yesterday I told myself that today would be better. Your attitude can 100% influence the type of day you're having and how you feel about yourself. Once I got home yesterday I changed into my comfy clothes to relax and I told myself that those bad days were gonna end right then. And slowly I felt myself getting back to normal last night and today I feel back to my old confident self. I know that there will probably be other days where I'll be less confident but I'm not afraid of those days now like I used to be. Stuff happens and we have to learn how to handle life's curves.

I hope that other people can relate to this post and it's something I wanted to share in case other people needed to hear it coming from someone else. I want to be honest and up front with you guys which is why I felt it was important to share even my bad days. It happens but if we keep our eyes on our goal and remember that we are all beautiful, the bad days will get outweighed by the good! Stay strong and believe you can do this :)

xoxo Sam

Just in case you're having a bad day and need a little cheering up I decided to browse my funny pins to share one. This movie never fails to crack me up even though I've seen it 6,984,247,012,395 times. My humor board on Pinterest is filled with jokes and lines that never fail to crack me up. They're cheesy and silly but sometimes that's what you need! I promise I'll be sharing more, whether you guys find them funny or not :)